


Sleeping In My Bed

by Kyra



Series: Sleeping in my Bed [1]
Category: New Girl
Genre: 5 Things, 5 Times, Childhood Room, F/M, Fantasy Dubcon, Friends to Lovers, Frottage, Hangover, Huddling For Warmth, Literal Sleeping Together, Roommates, Sharing a Bed, Sleeping Outside, True American
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-13
Updated: 2014-09-12
Packaged: 2018-01-15 13:37:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 7,596
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1306783
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kyra/pseuds/Kyra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She's been here before. Five times Jess slept in Nick's bed.</p><p>Now with a shiny new sequel: one time he slept in hers. <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/4925881/chapters/11302663">Variation on the Word Sleep</a>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Bro Juice

**Author's Note:**

  * For [blithers](https://archiveofourown.org/users/blithers/gifts).



> I asked for commentfic prompts, oh, a YEAR ago. blithers gave me this one and it quickly got extremely out of control. And then abandoned, because as you might recall, the second half of season 2 was an intense and quick-moving time in canon.
> 
> Title from the Lumineers. _I've been trying to do it right / I've been living a lonely life / I've been sleeping here instead / I've been sleeping in my bed_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First chapter set during season one.

Her bed is wet. Like, really wet.

"Oh my god," says Jess, loud enough for the rest of the apartment to hear. "Why the hell is my bed wet??"

She looks up at the ceiling but there's no obvious leak, and when she touches the wet spot and tentatively smells her fingers it smells …. boozy. She narrows her eyes and marches out into the living room, arms folded over her pajamas.

Nick and Schmidt are both sitting on the couch and pretend to have just noticed her.

"Hm?" Nick says. "What's that?" He's avoiding her eyes and Schmidt is intently examining a corner of the ceiling, which seals it.

"What. Did you do?" she says.

They both start talking at the same time.

"Well, there was --"

"-- with bro juice, and it --"

"You were drinking _bro juice_ in my room?!" she says.

"Not… drinking," Nick says.

"There were water balloons," Schmidt admits. "Bro juice balloons. It was Nick's idea!" he adds quickly at the look on her face.

Jess looks at Nick and after a second he shrugs.

"It's true," he says. "It was my idea."

"And it was amaaazeballs," Schmidt says, bursting into a grin and holding up his knuckles to fistbump.

"Yeah, it was!" Nick says and fist bumps him back.

"Un. Freaking. Believable," she says, and they quickly drop their hands and look guilty again.

"Fix it," she says, pointing to each of them in turn. "I don't care how, but when I come home tomorrow that bed better be dry as a whistle and smell as alcoholic as a convent. _With_ my favorite sheets back on it."

"Yeah, okay, yeah," they mutter over each other. Nick scratches the back of his head and gives her his best chastised look.

"Do you... want help making up the couch?" he offers.

Jess gives her best humorless chuckle.

"Oh no no no," she says. "I have to get up at 5:30 tomorrow morning for early playground monitor duty and I spent all afternoon redoing my bulletin boards and all I want to do is slam my face into a pillow as soon as I possibly can." She squints sternly at him through her glasses. "I'm sleeping in your bed. _You're_ sleeping out here."

"Why my bed?!" says Nick, his voice getting high. "Schmidt's bed is fancier!"

"Because Schmidt hasn't changed his sheets since he had that girl with the neck tattoo over.” 

Nick pauses.

“… you’re lying,” he says. “How could you know that?"

"It hasn't been Saturday and Saturday is sheet-changing day,” Jess says immediately, raising her eyebrows and staring them both down.

Nick and Schmidt both open their mouths and then close them again. Nick looks at Schmidt, who shrugs in agreement.

"Right," she says. "And I can't believe this has to be a rule, but _no more bro juice water balloons in my bedroom._ "

She turns on her heel and stalks toward Nick's bedroom.

"I can't believe I have to live with _boys_ ," she says as she shuts the door, loud enough for them to hear.

Speaking of boys, Nick’s room sure smells like one. Not in a gross way, but in a reminds-her-of-hooking-up-with-dudes-in-their-dorm-rooms way. Jess picks her way through the detritus on the floor (clothes, books, a lanyard, an empty water bottle) and flops face down onto the bed. Oh, sweet bed. After a minute she pushes herself upright enough to pull her phone out of her pajama pocket and set the alarm. She switches off the light and manages to paw the covers up over herself without sitting all the way up.

**

It's a pretty confusing 5:30 a.m. wakeup but she'll give this bed points for coziness. Getting up is extra especially hard today. Or maybe it's just because it's 5:30.

Nick's asleep face down on the couch, arm hanging off the side, drooling a little. She leaves her shoes off and tiptoes through making breakfast in her tights, but the noise wakes him up anyway.

"Jess?" he says, sitting up in confusion. His hair is wild man hair and she bites her lip not to laugh. "Did you -- my bed?"

"Yeah," she says. "It was a good sleep. You can go back there now, I'm leaving."

He looks at her blearily for a second, then gets up and shuffles obediently toward his room.

"I should sleep in _your_ bed," he mutters. "Couch sleeping is weird."

"Definitely," she says. "As soon as I have a bro juice water balloon fight all over your bed."

He's too sleepy to retort back so he just waves her off with one arm and wanders through the hall door toward his room.

"Sweet dreams, Miller," she sings, slipping her flats on and grabbing her bag and then she's out the door and riding down in the elevator and stepping out into the early morning air, half her mind on today's science project and half thinking of Nick upstairs crawling into her indent in his bed and falling back sound asleep.


	2. Desert

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Set during See Ya, the season 1 finale.

Jess wakes up when the music stops, cutting off Madonna and her ray of light mid-verse. She hadn't even really realized she'd fallen asleep; she's curled up on her side on top of Nick's crappy old bed where it's set up under the stretched out tarp, behind his moving van. But apparently she dozed off somewhere in there, hands tucked between her knees to keep them warm and now she's awake again and it's absolutely freezing.

Cece and Schmidt had both disappeared when she and Nick got back to the campsite after their crazy coyote adventure. She found Cece lying across the seats in the back of Jess's Volvo, blanket pulled over her head and Schmidt in the front of the moving van with the doors locked, pretending to be asleep even when Nick pounded on the window and yelled at him to open up. She's sure she'll get the full two-sided account tomorrow of whatever drama's going down. And they haven't seen any sign of Winston after the whole running-screaming-into-the-night thing.

"What a bunch of idiots," Nick had said, flopping down on the bed beside her. He had his mix tape back on, but softer, which is when she'd slid down on the bed to listen (and, okay, tease him more than a little about his DJ voice). It was strange, after so many days of chilly silence and pissy arguments between them, to be talking like they used to. But something's loosened between them, by some combination of their earlier talk or post-wilderness adrenaline. It's like a huge weight off her chest to not have to remember to be livid at him, stiff and cold. 

Now she's awake again and the music is off and boy, people aren’t kidding when they talk about how cold the desert gets at night. She can hear Nick moving around but it's so dark she can barely see anything, just his outline, a darker patch of black.

"Nick?" she says sleepily. 

"Shh," he says, and she feels the covers under her getting tugged down from his direction. She scrambles close enough to sitting up to get her feet under them, then collapses back down to the warm dent her head has made in the pillow.

There's a shift in the mattress as he sits down on the other side of the bed and then the covers come back up over her. Jess has no idea what time it is and it's warmer under the blankets but only by some.

She pulls the hood of Nick's duffel coat up over her head and the top half of her face but it's not enough. She's so cold she's shivering and she has to clench her teeth together to keep them from chattering and after a while she hears Nick shift in irritation on the other side of the mattress.

"What are you doing?" he says.

"I'm so cold," she blurts and it comes out even more plaintive than she meant it to.

"You're wearing like twelve layers of my clothes," he says and it's true. She and Cece had raided his boxes earlier for sweaters and socks, sun low in the sky, long shadows coming out. Even now they still kind of smell like him, the flannel and hoodie she has layered under his old duct-taped coat.

"I know," she says, "but it's _freezing_ out here. You didn't have Arctic explorer outfits."

There's a long pause before Nick huffs out a breath.

"Fine," he says. "Come here."

"…what?" she says.

"Come here, come over here, I'll warm you up," he says, and she feels him shifting towards the middle of the bed. She scoots toward him and oh my god, he's so warm she can feel the heat coming off him from six inches away.

He's facing her and she's still curled up in a tight ball trying to stay warm, so her knees bump into his legs and her arms press up against his chest.

"Oh my god," she says and it comes out sounding an awful lot like a moan, "you're so _warm_."

Nick doesn't say anything, just shifts a little closer and she slips her hands out of the sleeves of his parka to find his skin where it's radiating that wonderful, glorious heat. 

" _OH_ my god," Nick says, half shout, half yelp. He grabs her wrist where her hand has snuck under the hem of his flannel to find the warm skin at his waist. "What the hell! Are you part iceman? And don't do that!"

"Icewoman," she mutters sleepily, and her hands are cold, her nose is cold, she's so tired and she just wants to go to sleep. 

She hears Nick's huffy sigh again.

"Here," he says. "Turn over."

She does, so she's curled up facing away from him, and then -- oh god, so warm -- feels him shift so he's curled up behind her, chest to her back, knees tucked behind her knees, and if anyone were to ask her to describe this with a single verb she's _pretty_ sure the only appropriate one would be spooning.

Nick's arm snakes over her and for a second she thinks he's legit going to cuddle her -- oh god, so weird -- but no, he slides his hand down her arm 'til he gets to hers and tucks it in his own, hot skin around her icy fist.

"Oh my god," she says again and feels her muscles relaxing already, his body radiating heat into her wherever they're touching.

"Better?" he says after a few minutes, and she can feel the rumble against her back.

"How do you do that?" she says, already feeling herself slipping closer toward sleep. "Dudes. You. With the -- so warm."

“Manliness,” he says. “Manliness and beer."

Jess snorts a little, too tired to think of a comeback. She can feel his chest expanding and matches her breathing to his, long slow breaths inside the blanket cocoon.

"I meant what I said," she mumbles sleepily after a while. Her nose is still cold but what can you do. "About the-- you. Being happy. I'm happy for you."

"Shhhh," says Nick into her hair.

**

She wakes up early, super early, and the air smells like dew and the sky is getting light and she can see the cloud of her breath. 

Nick's still behind her, snoring softly and regularly. His arm isn't around her anymore but still kinda on her, hand a loose fist against her thigh. It's nice. And it's weird. He's moving in with his girlfriend tomorrow -- no, today -- and some other dude is going to be living across the hall from her, and here they are.

She has to pee but it’s going to take a lot more than that to get her out from under the warm blankets. Her thoughts are still hazy and half asleep and her arms are sore. From helping carry Nick’s boxes downstairs yesterday, she realizes after a moment. She shifts, stretching them and behind her Nick huffs out a breath and rolls onto his stomach, one leg heavy across her ankle.

Last night comes back to her in pieces and then all in a rush. So that happened. But it’s good, right? Maybe things will feel okay now. Maybe this will stop eating at her. Maybe she won’t lie awake any more worrying about Nick making terrible choices, having his heart broken. Or worse. Caroline getting pregnant, Nick trapped forever, months and years of him getting sadder and sadder. 

Like she would have been. Her and Spencer and that whole imaginary, annihilated future.

She’d like to fall back asleep but it’s getting brighter and brighter, sun flooding the sky and filtering through her eyelids and after a while Nick sighs and twitches and breathes in hard. 

“Hi,” she says, voice low, in case he’s still actually asleep. There’s a long pause and then he rolls away, onto his back, breaking contact at all the points where they were touching.

She rolls onto her own back to look onto him. He blinks sleepily at the sky and then over at her.

“Hey,” he says, voice cracked with sleep. There’s a pause and then he sits up and yawns, blinking hard. He scratches at the back of his head and glances back over at her, face unsure, like he doesn’t know if he should say something. Or like he can’t remember which version of themselves they’ve agreed to be: the ones who half-hate each other or the ones who are friends. And she suddenly doesn’t want to remember. Feels a weird moment of panic at whatever he might say.

“Morning!” she says, a little too loudly, and throws back the covers all in a rush, forcing herself out into the frigid air.


	3. True Americans

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> One, two, three, four: JF-why.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I swear to god, I had this mostly written a year before Mars Landing aired. And, um, I didn't know how to fix it, so I just saw it through. Sorry for the weird, canon pseudo-mirroring!

She knows she's hungover before she even opens her eyes. That sickly taste in her mouth and a throbbing in her left temple. Also she apparently still has her bra on and the underwire is trying to stab her to death. 

She opens one eye and immediately wishes she hadn't because her contact is basically seared to her eyeball. And all she can see is a dark green pillowcase that isn't hers.

Someone's snoring regularly behind her and she rolls onto her back. It's Winston, pillow less and on his stomach, fun-sized American flag sticking out of the back of his jeans and oh GOD that game of True American had seriously gotten out of hand. 

Jess presses the palm of her hand hard against her eye socket to try to keep her brain in place while the more embarrassing parts of last night bob to the surface of her murky memory. Being convinced she was going to throw up. Starting a group cheer for herself for not actually doing so. Declaring Nick’s bedroom Mount Rushmore (home of grumpy stonefaced old men!). Which must be why they’re all in here now. 

“Why. Do we keep. Doing this?” says the lump that is Winston beside her. He hasn’t moved — she didn’t know he was awake — and his voice is muffled by the mattress.

She lies there for a while, considering.

"Did I... throw up in a mug?" she asks finally. There's a silence.

"That sounds familiar," Winston says. "And terrible." There's another long silence. "But good aim," he adds. 

That explains how her mouth tastes. And negates that cheer.

Without warning, something grabs at her ankle and she shrieks and jerks away-- or tries to. In practice she whimpers and doesn’t move.

It’s a hand, it’s Nick’s hand, from the floor beside the bed where he’s stretched out. He’s groping around and finally succeeds in finding a pillow somewhere near her feet and pulling it down with a groan to join him on the floor.

(More parts of last night jog loose in her memory; fuzzy things, stuff she doesn’t even think about thinking except when she’s drunk. Catching Nick looking at her in a kind of funny way, before he looked away fast and swigged his beer. Feeling hotly aware of his eyes maybe on her the rest of the night after that. She’s been kind of messed up ever since their conversation last month, him being her non-sexual boyfriend. Talking about being attracted to each other.) 

With a wince she remembers clambering on some piece of furniture as it creaked dangerously, joking about Nick building a new one, him building her dresser, the inscrutable warning look he’d shot her and WHY must she run her mouth like that every time she drinks, why? She feels mortification burn through her along with a new wave of nausea.

Nick’s voice sounds muffled from the floor. 

"Can you guys please go be hungover somewhere else so I can die in my own bed?”

Winston lets out another wordless groan and doesn’t move, so it’s up to Jess to ease herself upright and off the bed, hunched over homonculus-style to preserve her delicate head. She steps across the heap that is Nick and stops thinking about anything except how amazingly cool her own pillow is going to feel while she sleeps off everything that happened last night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hat tip to AS, who will probably never read this, but who really did throw up in a mug, with truly impressive, ladylike aim.


	4. via Chicago

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's late, Chicago time.

Jess is a terrible person. She knows this for a fact now because here they are and Nick's dad is _dead_ (her heart twists just thinking the words) -- and yet there's this not-insignificant part of her brain that can't think about anything except each of the precise places they're ever-so-slightly touching: shoulder, knee, the sides of their hands on the plane armrest between them. 

Nick's a nervous flyer. ("Do you want a Xanax, buddy?" Schmidt had asked at the airport. "You remember what happened on spring break, right?") He's still holding onto both armrests well after takeoff and she's still holding onto hers because of those places they're touching. A terrible, terrible person.

Earlier she'd been lifting her bag to go in the overhead bin, pausing at shoulder level to muster strength for the final push, when he'd caught up to her in the aisle.

"Jess, stop, what are you doing?" he'd said in mild exasperation and moved behind her to grab the bag. It took him half a second to lift it, reaching over her head to wedge it in the bin -- half a second in which his front pressed against her back, warm and flannely and broad and she'd felt a rush of heat through every part of her.

There's a reason she's been super careful not to be alone with him since The Incident last weekend and this is it. Not that they're likely now to be making out on any tables in the near future.

When she looks over, Nick's jaw is clenched, his eyes closed and head against the seat, a frown on his face that goes way beyond hating airplanes and she wants to touch him in a totally different way now. Put a hand on the back of his neck or smooth the frown out of his forehead with her thumb. Hold his hand or hug him; something to _help_.

Instead she stays where she is. Let's the side of her knee rest against Nick's, trying to let that say everything she's biting back.

**

It's late -- Chicago time, anyway -- and she's in her starry pajamas, curled up in bed after a long, long day... and she can't sleep. Some combo of how quiet it is here (she's gotten kinda used to Outside Dave's midnight bucket-drum-spoken-word pieces) and how overwhelmed she feels by the fact that as of an hour ago she's apparently writing a _eulogy_. For someone she didn’t even (really) know. Nick's still downstairs somewhere, frowning over bank statements like he's been bodysnatched, like he's someone else entirely. 

And she's up here, in his old twin bed, which she'd somehow been assigned. Winston's sleeping at his mom's house a few blocks away and Schmidt's on the couch in the crafts room down the hall, which has apparently been his designated spot since visits in college. Being here, seeing all this history, she feels more like the new kid in their lives than she has in almost two years.

There's a cot set up beside the bed for Nick -- she'd tried to say that she could take the cot, but Nick's mom had ignored her ("Jamie, get the cot out for your brother," she'd bellowed into the other room over Jess’s protestations) and Nick had caught her eye and given a quick shake of his head so here she is.

She's still mostly awake when the door creaks open and Nick comes in from the dark hallway, a sleeping bag under his arm. She rolls on her side and watches him shake it open and fling it across the cot.

"Hey," she whispers and he looks up sharply.

"Hey," he stage whispers, stepping on the back of each of his shoes to kick them off. "Go back to sleep, it's late."

It's late for him too, which she doesn't point out. He looks exhausted, shoulders slumped, a pencil stuck behind one ear. She watches through her lashes as he crawls into the sleeping bag and flops down, then pauses and reaches up to grab the pencil. He frowns at it in confusion before tossing it toward his desk.

It hits the edge and bounces off, rolling across the floorboards 'til it stops under her bed. His bed.

It's totally fascinating and _so weird_ to be seeing where he came from like this. The origin story of Nick Miller. Earlier she'd wandered around to look at the things tacked on his bulletin board and taped to the wall: doodles and notes passed in class, his handwriting alternating with Winston's; the cover of an old TV Guide with Mulder and Scully on it; Dave Mathews Band ticket stubs and a bumper sticker for Q101. A stack of tattered Hardy Boys paperbacks on a bookshelf in the corner, banged-up hockey gear stacked by his bed.

"Nick," she whispers after a minute. His mom's right on the other side of the wall — her bedroom tv had treated Jess to a muffled version of Leno's whole monologue earlier. 

"What's up, Jess?" he says without opening his eyes. He's lying on his back, frown still pulling down his whole face.

She wants to ask how he is but even she can hear how dumb that would sound. And beyond that, what else can she say? All she wants to do is make him feel better. She shifts closer to the side of the bed, so her cheek is pressed right at the edge of the mattress. His cot is almost at the same level and she’s so close she can see the muscle jumping in Nick's jaw. If she kissed it, what would he do? If she crawled out of her bed and onto his, onto _him_. Would he kiss her like he had before? Like he was desperate for her? Pressing his body everywhere into hers like he wanted to swoop her up and make off with her?

She doesn’t let herself find out.

She can't keep herself from touching him, though. She reaches across the divide between their beds and curves her palm over his shoulder, before she’s even thought it through. He jumps at the touch and opens his eyes to look at her, questioning. Jess smiles, or tries to; it comes out rueful and she squeezes his shoulder, trying to put into it everything she wants to say about how sorry she is, everything she knows he’d squirm away from hearing. 

There’s a long moment where he’s just looking at her somberly in the dimness. And then he half smiles and brings his hand up to rest over hers, squeezing back. 

He leaves his hand there as he closes his eyes again and lets his head roll back to settle in the center of the pillow. 

Jess watches him for a while, still lying down, feeling the solidity of his shoulder through his t-shirt, the heat of his hand where it’s enveloping hers. But her eyes get heavy despite herself. She can feel sleep looming; just a short, easy walk downhill.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mad props to the two best Chicago fics out there, [I Want to Hold Your Hand](http://archiveofourown.org/works/864110) by wagawriter and [been too lonely too long](http://archiveofourown.org/works/746223) by allthingsholy, which built my mental landscape for this timeframe.


	5. Bunk

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Are you asleep?" he whispers in her ear.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Set post-season 3.

She puts up with so freaking much around here, she really does.

Like coming home to find one of Schmidt's ties on _her_ bedroom door. She pauses a moment, staring at the pattern of tiny Scottie dogs, then starts pounding on the door with both fists.

"Schmidt!" She hollers. "If this is even a little bit what it looks like, I'm going to kill you."

Schmidt answers the door surprisingly quickly, and she falls forward mid-pound. And oh GROSS, he's naked except for the pillow he's holding in front of his crotch. One of her pillows.

He at least has a good grace to look ashamed and a little panicked.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry," he half-whispers. "I owe you. _So_ much. The contents of Fort Knox. If there's anything still in there," he adds. Nick has a lot of conspiracy theories on the subject.

" _What_ are you doing," she hisses and tries to peer around him unsuccessfully. "Do you have a girl in there?"

"Not a girl," he says and gets a dreamy half-smile on his face.

"A guy?!" She says, eyes going wide.

Schmidt's face falls into a scowl with impressive speed.

"No, not a guy!" he says in his most offended voice. "That was one time and it was a misunderstanding." He glances back over his shoulder. "I mean, she's not a girl, she's a goddess." The dopey look is back.

"I am going to kill you harder for this than anything you've ever done," she starts.

"I know, I know, I know," he interrupts. "I promise, I will do anything you want. And I will scrub down your room like it's my own." The pillow starts to slip and he adjusts it just in time. "But I couldn't bring her back to a _bunk bed_." He gestures with his chin to the room across the hall, the one he's sharing with Nick. "And can we _please_ talk about this later?"

Jess glowers.

"Oh, I am going to own your ass," she says sourly. Schmidt grins again and winks at her.

"Literally?"

"Ewww, Schmidt!" she yells and he winces.

"Sorry, sorry, accidentally stuck in sex talk mode," he says. "Seriously, I owe you, you're fantastic —"

He's edging back inside.

"— you're Mother Theresa in a Lady Di body," he says and she frowns.

"What does that even--" she says and, realizing he's closing the door, tries to jam her foot in. But it's too late. The door shuts with a click and she hears the lock turning.

"Sorry, baby," she hears him say and oh god she's going to have to freaking EXORCISE that room.

\----

No one's home and it's late and she can't putter around in the kitchen anymore. She wants to go to _bed_ except Schmidt's. still. in there. How is this her life?

She ends up keeping vigil in her old room, slumped on the bottom bunk and glaring out into the hall at the door to her new room. She's going to rip him a new one the second he comes out. Plus she wants to see the poor girl that he's duped into believing that's his bedroom, with an entire shelf dedicated to the best of the Babysitters Club Super Specials editions. (Hey, she's a teacher. She has plausible deniability.)

The bottom bunk where she's slumped is Nick's, which is why the sheets are in a twisted heap at the foot of the mattress and why she finds a Twix wrapper under the pillow. When Nick had finished put the IKEA frame together, complaining to Schmidt the whole time, they both immediately flopped onto their respective bunks without discussion.

"Why'd you pick the bottom one?" she had asked, helping him pick up all the inexplicable leftover nuts and bolts. See? She can be a good ex-girlfriend. Putting herself through emotional torment in solidarity when she knows he's doing something crappy. Like building himself a bed that isn't theirs.

He'd blinked, forehead wrinkling.

"I always have the bottom bunk," he said, like it was a weird question to even ask.

She misses her old room: the big windows, the mouth-watering closet. But Schmidt was already doing her — them — such a favor, bunking up with Nick, it’s not like she could ask for it back.

Plus it’s bigger. It makes more sense for two people. So she can stay in Nick’s old room, done up new with all her things, like that’ll ever make it stop feeling like Nick’s room. Funny that it feels more like a place that’s both of theirs now than it ever did when they both slept here.

Plus it’s starting to feel like a long time ago that she lived in her old room, that it was just him and her across the hall from each other. Different place, different time, different her, different them.

In the here and now, Jess huffs and digs her phone out of her pocket to pass the time. She should start a list of all the shit she's going to make Schmidt do to make this up to her.

\--

When she wakes up, the room is pitch black and she's incredibly confused about where she is. Or when she is. She lies there, letting the details come back, wondering if she can guess how late it is by how hungry she is. She dimly remembers her phone battery dying and closing her eyes with the intention of getting up in just one more minute.

In the distance, she hears the familiar thud of Nick kicking off his shoes by the front door. If he's home from work, it's really late, long past midnight. The door closing must've been what woke her.

She drifts in and out of sleep, letting its delicious temptation call her back just under the surface and bobbing up again. Finally, she hears the door click open and a pause that must mean Nick sees her in the stream of light from the hallway.

She's curled up on her side, back to the door, face pressing almost into the wall, like you had to do in college to fit two people in a twin bed. Being still in her work clothes makes her feel sweaty and strange, her glasses digging into the side of her face.

The door closes again and she really needs to get up but it's so dark again now, deliciously dark, and her body doesn’t understand why she’d be thinking about getting up at this hour.

There's a longer pause, and she resists the urge to turn over and see what Nick is doing. Opening her eyes seems like an awfully big thing to commit to right now.

Finally she hears the whisper of movement and a weight that settles onto the bed behind her. Nick, just sitting. He stays there for a minute, maybe two, and then the mattress shifts again and she feels him lie down beside her. Behind her, not touching, not quite.

"Are you asleep?" he whispers in her ear and she takes a while to answer.

"Yes," she finally says, also whispering. He huffs out a breath that's not quite a laugh and she feels him roll onto his side, getting comfortable.

She's sure he doesn't mean it. It's a really small bed. But now he's touching her, just a little bit, his knees brushing the back of her legs, his breath warm against her neck. 

When they were together he loved being the little spoon. And the big spoon. Basically he loved anything that let him touch her. Being this close calls it all back with a sense of overwhelming yearning, and she feels tears pricking behind her eyelids. Everything smells like him and in the dark it's easy to pretend this is Before. That in a moment he's going to pull her tight against him, muzzle something sleepy and sweet into her neck, and when they wake up he's going to coax her out of her top and make her late for work.

She lets out a breath that's only barely shaky and hears him shift in response. She goes back to playing asleep, breathing regularly, so he doesn't ask anything and she doesn't have to answer.

It's sadness or nostalgia that makes her shift backwards just a bit, so she can feel him pressed up against her, firm and comforting. And then she realizes she shouldn't have, because now her backside is against his crotch and she can feel that he's half-hard. It always amazed her how fast he got hard for her; just a long kiss or her lying on top of him fully-clothed as she told him about her day.

She lies very still for a little while letting them both pretend she doesn't know what's happening. They’re still for so long that she half-forgets and shifts again, her ass sliding against him. The breath he draws in sounds almost like a hiss and her pulse leaps in her throat. 

She can't help it. She’s missed that sound so much.

She does it again, this time intentionally, working her hips in ever-so-tiny circles as she presses into the length of his dick through their clothes. He stays very still before settling a hand carefully on her hip — like he doesn’t want to be more forward than that.

She keeps moving and after a moment she can feel him rocking with her, rubbing his hard-on against her. And God, that is so freaking hot.

Now that he's moving, she lets herself go mostly still again, letting them both pretend she's actually asleep. For some reason the thought of that, him doing this to her if she were, makes her feel a flood of wetness and oh — she really has not thought this situation through.

Like he can read her mind, his hand slides forward, ever so slowly, palm against the flat of her belly. When she doesn't do anything, he lets two of his fingers slide under the waistband of the skirt she'd been wearing when she came home, what feels like a million years ago. She lets out a little sigh and bucks her hips, she can't help it. And like that, his hand is gone and oh, no no no, that's not what she--

And then his hand is back, skating up her bare thigh to get at her from below. It slides under her skirt, pushing it up around her waist and she feels the side of his hand pressing against the crotch of her panties, where her thighs meet. Not moving, just pressing.

The pressure is infuriating and arousing as hell and she can feel the rush of herself getting wet. Wetter. She shifts again, tilting ever so slightly backwards so her thighs aren’t pressed so tightly together and he finally moves, stroking his whole hand against her, slowly, all the way from bottom to top.

Her panties slide slickly against her, giving her away, and he chuckles ever so slightly into her ear. Something twists hard and hot inside her at the idea of him amused at how wet she is. For him.

He's still rocking himself against her, so slowly it must be killing him, and his fingers catch the rhythm, sliding up and down her, pressing her panties into her folds. She’s breathing in hot little gasps, a little stunned by how fast this has happened, how instantly her body responded. This is hands-down the hottest thing that has ever happened to her fully dressed.

And she knows, she KNOWS, that they shouldn't be doing this. Giving into temptation. They’ve been trying so hard not to touch each other, trying so hard to be good. And it’s been _hard_ : she had no idea how difficult, how constantly distracting it would be to sit across the room when there’s an empty seat beside him. To not lean against him at the kitchen counter or follow him to the bathroom at Clyde’s when he’s been catching her eye all night. 

If they wanted, they could stop this now. No one's clothes have even come off. And surely things that happen in the dark when you're half-asleep don't count — the kind of things you’re not going to bring up in the light of day.

But then she lets out a little cry, she can't help it, his fingers suddenly pressed down right around her clit and circling.

He stills behind her and she almost whines, twitches her hips between his hand and his dick.

"Shhhh," he says very softly right at her ear, his lips brushing the outer shell. His beard scrapes against the skin on her neck and she feels goosebumps wash over her.

Okay, so he wants to keep playing, pretending she's asleep; she can do that. Or at least she thinks she can until he pulls the crotch of her underwear to the side and eases one. finger. inside her, slow and so fucking delicious.

She moans, voice breaking in a way so telling that she'd be embarrassed if she weren't far beyond that. But it makes him go still again, finger still inside her.

"We gotta be quiet, Jess," he says. "He'll hear us.” 

— and in the stillness of neither of them moving, she realizes she can hear a third person breathing. Schmidt, that life-ruiner, asleep in the top bunk. Her mind spins, putting the pieces together: he must have cleared out of her room while she was asleep and come in here to go to bed himself — and done it without waking her up so she wouldn’t yell at him, the coward. 

She shifts in surprise, but that just reminds her of Nick’s finger all the way inside her and slides her panty-covered ass over the front of Nick's jeans, where he's now impossibly hard.

And apparently Nick's okay with this situation, because he's brushing his thumb ever so slightly over her clit. In a moment he starts moving his hand as much as he can at this angle, pressing into her and pulling out. God, he's good at this; she never appreciated multitasking as a sex talent before him.

She's tight, both because of the position and because it's been a while. She doesn't want him to know how long — their complicated economy of who can seem the most okay, the most moved on — but she knows he can tell. Knows he's noticed as he works a second finger inside her where it just barely fits, stretching her impossibly, amazingly. (God she’s missed his broad, handyman hands.) It’s so different from their sex marathon weekends, when he had her so spread open and well-fucked he could slide three fingers inside her, brushing against her G spot as she whimpered, wrung out, and let him coax another orgasm out of her.

"Jesus," he breathes against her ear and she doesn't know if it's because of how tight she is or how wet she is but it makes her thighs clench together. She wishes she could see his face.

"Thatta girl," he says as she writhes against him and it's that or the thumb flicking over her clit that makes her come. Sooner than she expected, using all her willpower to stay silent while it rushes through her.

Of course he can tell, face pressed to her neck as she shakes against him and then slowly goes limp, muscles releasing one by one. He slides his fingers out slowly, letting the elastic of her panties snap back into place, but it's only so he can slide his hand down the front of her panties and cup her there with his whole hand, skin on skin. She lets the aftershocks shudder through her, her pulse gradually slowing as Nick's fingers slide against her, between her folds. Not trying to get her off again; just stroking it like something he's soothing. Something he doesn't want to let go. 

She doesn't want this moment to end, the bubble they're inside to pop. Jess reaches behind her, arm slipping under his, and presses her hand against his erection. The angle's awkward and she's not doing much more than holding him but he bucks against her hand anyway. She pauses, considering, then turns onto her back.

"Switch," she says, old shorthand from that other life, and the hand still down her underwear pauses.

And then it slips out and he's turning onto his other side, so she can curl around him. She fumbles at his fly with one hand, before he uses two hands to unbutton it for her. It's her turn to press her mouth to the soft skin behind his ear.

"Go to sleep," she breathes and feels him pause, then slowly go boneless against her.

When she pulls his zipper down with one hand his dick pops free, still in his boxers, like it's been yearning to escape. She coaxes it out through the fly, then lets herself just run her hand up and down it, remembering it, how silky soft and solid, hard he is all at once.

This isn't going to go far like this though, so she slides her hand back over his hip and into her own underwear, soaked. She slides two fingers (not nearly as thick as his) over and into herself before bringing her hand back to his cock. She slicks the wetness over the head so her hand slides more easily now and she hears him hiss when he realizes what she's done.

She could do with a little more though, so she spits into her own hand, silent and inelegant but it’s worth it for the way Nick's hips jerk when she takes hold of him again, pressing forward to the circle of her hand.

There's a rhythm to this and she remembers it right away. She long-ago came to terms with the fact that she was never going to be as good at giving a hand job to any guy as he was himself, but given the lack of equipment with which to practice, she gets by. And Nick's not complaining now, breathing growing harsher as she jerks him quickly, tightening her grip at the top, like she knows he likes.

It doesn't take long: “Oh god,” he mutters through clenched teeth. "I'm gonna-"

She feels him fumble for the hem of his shirt and she fights to keep up the pace even though her wrist is aching now. She feels his whole body go tense and then he comes into his t-shirt, groaning almost silently with each pulse of his dick.

He stays slumped that way, face pressed into his upper arm, and the silence in the room is a sudden yawning presence. She understands why he didn't stop touching her before, after she came; she doesn't want to let go either, doesn't want to face the moment after this moment and all the ones after that.

With a sigh, Nick finally brings his hand to cover hers where it's still wrapped around him. He squeezes slightly and it's enough reassurance for her to press her forehead into his back.

When she finally does let go, rolling onto her back, he does too, tucking himself away as they look at each other for the first time across the small expanse of his sheets.

"Schmidt had sex with some random girl in my room," she says, voice low, and is gratified by Nick's hundred-watt disgust face.

"Nowhere is safe," he says and she bites her lip, smiling, and he grins back. It slowly fades on his face, though, and then they’re just looking at each other. 

Nothing feels any easier or clearer. She didn’t think it would — but oh, she wanted to be wrong.

“So … that happened,” he says and she huffs out something almost like a laugh. It’s always been so easy like this when it’s just the two of them. It would be so simple to shift forward and press her forehead against his sternum, breath in the familiar, musky smell of him. Fall asleep like that, pretending everything’s okay. 

It’s so easy in the dark — but morning's gonna come and he’s still going to be the guy who runs out of cash by Thursday every week. Who thinks dentists are a scam.

If they were 25, maybe— 

But they’re not, she’s not. She’s just got this empty half of her chest that was always waiting for the progress bar of their relationship to finish loading. That feels _ready ready ready—_ for everything that comes next, for life to start happening, in a new kind of way. And she’s pretty sure that none of the babies swarming her Facebook feed are in any danger from Skyknife.

But these are familiar circles her brain’s going in. She’s had lots of time to get them perfect, sprawled in the middle of her own bed at night.

How she’s not happy with him. Not happy without him.

“So what happens now?” she says, working to keep her voice light.

The look he gives her is pained and frozen and she bites down on the inside of her bottom lip, nods a little against the pillow. 

His eyes are searching her face, so dark and intent she has to look away, look down. Nick’s hand is resting between them on the bed at waist level and she slides hers into it without thinking too hard.

“Yeah, me neither,” she says and his fingers tighten around hers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to annakovsky for helping me figure out where to go with this and to everyone who's let me know you're enjoying this! It makes a world of motivational difference. 
> 
> Continued in the sequel: [Variation on the Word Sleep](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4925881/chapters/11302663).


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